Hicks acknowledged incoming and outgoing board members. Kellogg
sought feedback about the election cycle changing to October through
November. No objections were made – election cycle will continue
as last year.

Hicks opened the floor for Presidential candidates for election –
Kopplin put forth Elton as a nominee – she accepted. A vote was
put for to the general membership to elect Serona Elton as
president. The result of the election is as follows:

For: Unanimous
Oppose: None

Serona Elton, University of Miami, was elected President of MEIEA

Hicks acknowledged John Kellogg for his service on MEIEA and presented
a plaque in his honor.

Journal Report & Research Stipends (Ronkin)

Ronkin discussed the MEIEA journal’s addition to Gale Distribution and
its addition to the EBSCO database. He also mentioned the
journal’s addition to Cabells Journal listing. He
also mentioned that the acceptance rate of the journal is about
50%. A question about which category in Cabells was raised.

Haines discussed the eZine and it’s ongoing development. He also
put a call out for submissions.

Deadline for the next journal will be at the end of May

Ronkin introduced the research grant recipients for 2010.

David Schreiber: Strategic Decision Making in music industry SMEs
Ainslee Harris:

Ronkin discussed research grant proposals and the process of
involvement. Encouraged submissions and to check the website in a
couple of weeks for details.

Deadline: Priority Consideration – Early September,
2011

Strategic Initiatives

Ronkin spoke to the membership about the future direction of the
organization. He shared the desire for the board to live to its
mission, take into consideration the ongoing feedback from both faculty
and students and the desire to move ahead by serving its membership to
the best that they can. Faculty come to our yearly conference to
network with other educators and come as researchers to share and
disseminate knowledge. He discussed the board’s desire to foster
these initiatives and live closer to MEIEA’s mission statement.

Students come to the conference on a different path desiring to enter
the industry. When we plan next year’s conference we want to meet
those needs despite the challenge. He mentioned that 32 papers
were submitted and only 14 could be accepted due to the time
constraints at this year’s conference. Ronkin also shared that we
are only reaching a small number of MEISA members and would like to
reach the larger population by allowing them to put forth regional
conferences.

Alhadeff shared his thoughts about having the student body create a
social interaction site. Van Wagner also reiterated the students
concern to have a central body to communicate. Elton mentioned
that they have a Facebook tool to do so. Elton clarified that
trying to create an event to meet the needs of both constituencies by
offering a national MEIEA conference with regional MEISA
events. This model will allow the students to be more
involved and take ownership of MEISA and the regional
conferences. Kellogg shared his conversation with Passman about
who he is speaking to and wanted to emphasize the challenges of
targeting appropriately. Rolston emphasized that we need to
continue providing opportunities to those students if we decide to look
at different models for the conference. Wujcik shared his
experience that students are not necessarily here to learn and that
focusing on the educators is the way to go. Alhadeff questioned
how the incoming MEISA national board would manage the regional
events. The discussion continued around the growth and size of
the conference and how it has gotten too large for people to want to
take on. Preston asked about whether we have surveyed the students and
how they fell about it. Bulla shared with the membership that
MEISA approached the board a few years back wanting to separate.
Strasser asked whether the students drive the profitability of the
conference. Bulla clarified that we are better off financially
separating them. Slay shared her desire of the current model
logistically and that we should work to our unique qualities of being a
music and entertainment industry educators organization. Gordor
shared his thoughts about keeping the conference to an industry
epicenter. He is much more drawn to an event with industry
leaders and not just an academic-centered calendar. Elton
clarified with the membership that this current situation is not
doable. We need the help of an institution, need to scale it
back, anecdotal evidence and surveys that have been conducted support
this. Two tracks for a conference tailored towards MEISA and
MEIEA makes the work-load too difficult, even for the board. She
also shared that MEISA will likely be on board with this.
Students will program for what they want, which is what they want to
see in their conferences anyway. She reiterated once again that
we HAVE to do it. Kellogg mentioned that it would follow a summit
model and ask the membership to support us in this endeavor.